Bristol

When writing, think about what you want to say before worrying about how you’re going to say it. It’s often tempting to try to finish a sentence or paragraph by asking yourself, ‘What will sound good here?’ But that doesn’t get good results! Instead, ask yourself, ‘What do I want to say?’ or ‘What point am I making?’

Clear thinking makes for clear writing, and clear writing is much more effective than any number of fancy phrases. Also, if you make sure you know what idea or information you want to put across before you start worrying about which words or phrases to use, the whole task of finding those words and phrases becomes much easier.

If you’d like to book a confidential one-to-one session with me to work on your writing skills, please email Harriet.Castor@uwe.ac.uk
I’m at Frenchay on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I know you’ve probably got other things to do (like lying on the beach, sipping cool drinks and meeting up with friends), but if you would like to read a bit about the stuff you’ll be doing next year, here are lists of suggested reading. Please note that this post will be added to as and when I hear back from colleagues.

Please note: this is not the ‘ultimate’ list yet, and changes may very well occur. Yet, for summer reading, this list is perfect and should keep you occupied for a while 🙂

For a few years now, we have been very targeted in preparing our students for their graduate employability. And the work seems to be paying off. Here UWE’s English Language and Linguistics degree is features on ITV news – with our own Sandeep Sond (soon to be graduate in English Language and Linguistics) talking about getting a graduate-level job upon graduation. Well done, Sandee!

There are plenty of great resources online that can help you with problems or questions you may have about writing essays and dissertations. One example is the part of the Royal Literary Fund’s website that’s called ‘Writing Essays: A Guide’. It includes sections on ‘Planning and Structure’, ‘Drafting and Editing’ and ‘Making an Argument’ (amongst others). You can find them all here:

With the end of the term looming and the assessment period to begin just after Easter, I thought it would be a good idea to share a draft chapter from one of my new books on Assessment – how to do well. It is the first draft of this chapter for the book Study Skills for Linguistics, which will be published by Routledge in the Understanding Languageseries (most likely in early 2015). It’s quite a short chapter (8 single-space or 11 1.5-spaced pages), but it’s packed full of information on small things you can implement to do well.

Congratulations Jens Branum (level 3) for winning this year’s student experience impact award – a very well deserved recognition of his work both in the rep system, as well as in other areas of the Programme over the last (almost) three years. Further nominations went to Emily Duignan and Victoria Mercer (who was shortlisted for the student rep award).

On top of that, most of the lecturers in English Language and Linguistics received nominations from our students (a total of eight nominations!), and quite a few of us made the shortlist of the student rep and student-led teaching awards.

Somebody must have noticed this headline in The Post for 5 March 2014, nicked from the Daily Mail, apparently. No? Well, it happened in 2011, so it’s old news, but the article does say that George (never embarrassed in his life about anything, of course) was so unhappy about the discovery that he vowed to give up dope for life. The Post wheels out for a comment Mr Gareth Chilcott (ex-Bath rugby star), who says: “He shouldn’t be embarrassed about speaking in a Bristolian accent. He should be more embarrassed about smoking cannabis at all. [Yeah, well.] I am a great advocate of the Bristolian accent. In fact it should be compulsory. There should be a law that every hour on television there should be a Bristol accent, so we can educate people.” Can I join you in the real world, Gaz?

Tomorrow, at our BCL seminar (Bristol Centre for Linguistics), Richard Coates is going to talk about “Where are the limits of the name? Some remaining issues with The Pragmatic Theory of Properhood“. As always, the talk will take place in 3E24 – from 1-2pm. You’re welcome to bring your lunch. All are welcome!